[[ I have 200 60W incandescent bulbs in stock. About 1 a month burns out in
my apt. I bought them for less than two bits apiece. Made in USA too. ]]
<http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/author/scottystarnes/> GE backed
regulations that killed GE jobs in
U.S.<http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/2010/09/27/ge-backed-regulations-that-killed-ge-jobs-in-u-s/>
*Scotty Starnes
<http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/author/scottystarnes/>*| September
27, 2010 at 11:53 AM | Tags: Barack
Obama <http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/tag/barack-obama/>,
China<http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/tag/china/>,
Democrats <http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/tag/democrats/>,
GE<http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/tag/ge/>,
General Electric <http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/tag/general-electric/>,
incandescent light
bulbs<http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/tag/incandescent-light-bulbs/>,
India <http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/tag/india/>, Jeff
Immelt<http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/tag/jeff-immelt/>,
light bulbs <http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/tag/light-bulbs/>,
Mexico<http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/tag/mexico/>,
Obama <http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/tag/obama/>, outsourcing
jobs<http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/tag/outsourcing-jobs/>,
President Obama <http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/tag/president-obama/> |
Categories:
Uncategorized<http://scottystarnes.wordpress.com/category/uncategorized/>|
URL:
http://wp.me/pvnFC-2Rd
Of course, Obama and the Democrats won't say a word about this. Jeff Immelt,
CEO of
GE<http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/the-ge-obama-affair-and-jeff-immelts-harsh-words-97688939.html>,
is a Obama 'economic adviser.' Light bulbs are no longer made in the U.S.,
instead, GE is sending all of light bulb manufacturing jobs to Mexico, China
and India. Where is the outrage from the liberals who bitch about big
corporations sending jobs overseas?
The Washington Examiner
<http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/politics/GE-backed-regulations-that-killed-GE-jobs-in-U_S_-984209-103727674.html>
reports:
On Thursday night -- sometime around 8 o'clock -- 130 years after Thomas
Edison commercialized the incandescent light bulb, Dwayne Madigan helped
make the last such bulb Edison's company, General Electric, would make in
the United States.
Madigan spent the rest of his shift at the Winchester Lamp Plant emptying
chemicals out of machines and helping clean up the shop. By Friday, Madigan
and all 200 plant employees were out of work. Those who would talk to a
reporter on Thursday all had someone to blame.
*Dave Rusk, retiring against his will, told me his job disappeared thanks to
"a push from Congress." The 2007 energy bill included minimum efficiency
standards for light bulbs - standards that the bulbs made in Winchester
can't meet.*
For now, compact fluorescents - the double-helix shaped bulbs that sell for
$2 for a 100-watt equivalent - are the stand-in. GE Lighting spokeswoman
Janice Fraser says light-emitting diode bulbs will be the true long-term
replacement: most of GE Lighting's research and development goes into LEDs.
"When you see the enormous savings that can be achieved by more efficient
lighting ... it's huge," said Fraser. But if the energy savings are big
enough, and if the lifespan of the high-tech bulbs is as long as they say,
then why should it take regulation to get people to buy them?
*GE supported the regulations. Many Winchester workers, noting that the
CFLs are made in China by lower-wage workers, say GE wanted to force the
higher profit-margin bulbs on consumers, and Winchester is collateral
damage.*
*Rusk holds this against GE and "the Democratic Congress" that passed the
bill. "To me, it's actually another freedom taken away from Americans," he
told me from his pickup truck as he left his final full shift Thursday.
"Actually outlawing this lamp by 2014. ... You're losing a choice there. I
think that bothers me more than anything. I should be able to buy whatever I
want."*
Everybody has different explanations of GE's lobbying on the rules. Fraser
told me that GE had opposed early regulations that would have totally banned
incandescent technology, but supported the efficiency standards as less bad.
"As long as you know that the legislation is coming one way or another," she
said, "you want to influence it in a way that makes sense for your customers
and your business."
*Teresa Golightly, after working her last shift Thursday, said GE CEO Jeff
Immelt supported the rules to cozy up with politicians: "He got on Obama's
economic team. I feel like we were sold out."*
Like Rusk and Golightly, GE management in a press release last year blamed
the factory's closing on "a variety of energy regulations that establish
lighting efficiency standards" that will "make the familiar lighting
products produced at the Winchester Plant obsolete."
*But one worker, who went out of his way to talk to me, said the regulations
are just a "scapegoat." GE wanted to send their jobs to Mexico, and the
regulations provide political cover.*
Indeed, the regulations allow GE to manufacture light bulbs for sale in the
United States until 2014 for lower wattages (2012 for 100-watt bulbs). *Then
there are the growing markets in India and China, where more people have
electricity every day, and where no such regulations exist. So GE is still
making traditional incandescents -- but in Monterrey, Mexico, instead of
Winchester*. "We look at our business as a global business," Fraser
explained. "We make things where it is more efficient."
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